Additive decompositions for rings of modular forms

Abstract

We study rings of integral modular forms for congruence subgroups as modules over the ring of integral modular forms for SL 2 ​ Z. In many cases these modules are free or decompose at least into well-understood pieces. We apply this to characterize which rings of modular forms are Cohen-Macaulay and to prove finite generation results. These theorems are based on decomposition results about vector bundles on the compactified moduli stack of elliptic curves.